Many organisations are now equipped to receive messages, including orders and enquiries, by electronic means. Typically, such electronic messages take the form of text-based messages, for example e-mails, delivered by a global computer network, for example the Internet, or by a telecommunications network, for example a mobile telephone network. Each message must be processed and dealt with appropriately i.e. according to the nature of the message. In many cases, the volume of received electronic messages is relatively high and it is considered inefficient to process each message manually.
For this reason, it is known for electronic message processing systems, typically in the form of a computer system, to employ a text analyzer, such as IBM's Mail Analyzer, to analyse the content of electronic messages in order to classify, or categorize, each message according to its content. Once a message has been categorized, the processing system sends it on to a human agent who has the skills necessary to deal with messages falling within the relevant category(s). Alternatively, the computer system itself may be able to deal with messages falling within certain category(s).
Typically, a text analyzer examines the text of each message in turn in search of one or more alphanumeric text string, for example a word or sequence of words, which may be used to identify the purpose or nature of the message under examination. Normally the text analyzer operates in association with a rule engine to apply a set of rules to the message in order to determine how to categorize the current message.
By way of simplistic example, a banking organisation may have a message processing system arranged to receive electronic messages in three different categories, namely: balance enquiry; request for funds transfer; and interest rate enquiry. In order to categorize each received message, a text analyzer in association with a rule engine applies a set of four rules to each message in turn. The first rule stipulates that if the text string “balance” appears in the message, then the message falls in the balance enquiry category. The second rule stipulates that if the text strings “funds” and “transfer” appear in the message, then the message falls in the funds transfer category. The third rule stipulates that if the message contains the text string “interest rate”, then the message should be categorized as an interest rate enquiry. The fourth rule stipulates that if none of the previous rules are satisfied, then the message is deemed unclassified.
Clearly, a message may fall within more than one category.
For this reason, some conventional text and analyzers, including the IBM mail analyzer are capable of generating a set of more than one categories in which a given message is deemed to fall. Further, such text analyzers normally associate with each category in the set an indication of the level of confidence with which the text analyzer has determined that the message falls within that category. Typically, the confidence level is expressed as a percentage.
Once categorization is complete, the message has to be distributed to a human agent, or a computer (automated) agent, that is capable of dealing with messages falling within the relevant category or categories. There is a problem, however, in that an agent may not have the capability to deal with all of the categories into which a given message falls. This is particularly true for large organisations which may receive messages falling in one or more of tens or even hundreds of categories, and where each agent employed by the organisation is only trained to deal with a subset of those categories.
Conventionally, an e-mail processing system includes a distributor which is arranged to determine which category has been assigned to a given message with the highest confidence level. The distributor then selects an agent that is capable of dealing with said category and forwards the message on to him (or it).
Upon receipt of the message, the agent duly deals with those aspects of the message that he can. If a message includes further aspects which fall within a category or categories that the agent cannot deal with, the onus is on the agent to recognise this and to forward the message, together with the part-response that the agent was able to prepare, to another agent who does have the capability to deal with one or more of the outstanding categories.
This is problematic since the agent may not recognise that there are other aspects of the message which require attention or may simply fail to forward the message on to another agent. This can result in a response being returned to the customer (from which the message emanated) which only partly deals with the various orders or requests made in the message. This can be frustrating to the customer and damaging to the organisation as it may result in loss of business.